A multicarrier communication system such as, e.g., Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), Discrete Multi-tone (DMT) and the like, is typically characterized by a frequency band associated with a communication channel being divided into a number of smaller sub-bands (subcarriers herein). Communication of information (e.g., data, audio, video, etc.) between stations in a multicarrier communication system is performed by dividing the informational content into multiple pieces (e.g., symbols), and then transmitting the pieces in parallel via a number of the separate subcarriers. When the symbol period transmitted through a subcarrier is longer than a maximum multipath delay in the channel, the effect of intersymbol interference may be significantly reduced.
By simultaneously transmitting content through a number of subcarriers within the channel, multicarrier communication systems offer much promise for high-throughput wireless applications. Conventional techniques for increasing system throughput, i.e., the amount of content the channel can carry at any given time, emphasize the identification and exploitation of “good” subcarriers (e.g., those that offer a threshold data rate at or above a threshold performance characteristic (e.g., signal to noise ratio SNR)) over “bad” subcarriers, which are deactivated. The remaining, active subcarriers, are then processed to reach an “optimal” Shannon “water-filling” solution. Such conventional techniques are typically computationally expensive and do not provide a commensurate improvement in system throughput.